Graeme Southern[aged 48 and a half] richly deserved his try after working his socks off this season to get sides on the pitch and, sadly, this game was no different. Hence, Sos started the game and gave way to John Painter at half time after the latter had arrived from work. That kind of commitment should be a lesson to others. [Moan over].
Both sides had makeshift line-ups including Jay Corbett in the centre for the Stags. It all made for an entertaining game which was very well supported, and which will almost certainly be repeated at Rovers next Christmas.
The visitors were very strong in the opening stages, and it looked like it could be a landslide as they raced into a 14-0 lead.
But, with some handy forwards on the field, including Jack Angus at prop on his return from Billingham, the Stags eventually worked their way back into the game.
Southern's deserved try came from short range [no surprise really] after lots of pressure in the Rovers 22. Kyle Jamieson slotted an excellent conversion from wide on the left to make it 14-7 at the break.
With Painter senior[ aged 50] making his second appearance of the week the pack became even stronger, and he himself finished off more pressure after a great run by "Crazy Craig" Hadwen took play to the Rovers line.
"JLS" did the honours again but Rovers scored two penalties to give themselves a six point lead.
Then came the try of the game as Jamieson moved to fly half and opted to break back through the forwards after receiving just inside his own half. The Heughers' defence was wrong footed and after carving through the pack young Kyle raced round to give himself an easy conversion.
He missed with a relatively easy penalty a few minutes later and the Heughers came back for a final assault. It looked like they might snatch it when the excellent Nicky O'Donnell awarded a penalty in front of the posts and 25 metres out, but for the only time in the afternoon the big boot of Heughers' fly half Daz Fawcett was just wide.
If future festive games between thse two sides are as enjoyable as this then it may well be that players are actually queuing up to take part.